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All the news you might have missed from the last seven days

Ro­main Bardet and his Ag2r-la Mon­di­ale team­mates will be rid­ing Eddy Mer­ckx bikes for the next two sea­sons, af­ter Bri­tish brand Fac­tor ended its as­so­ci­a­tion. Jochim Aerts, CEO of Bel­gian Cy­cling Fac­tory (owners of the Eddy Mer­ckx brand) said, “It’s mar­vel­lous, the Tour starts in Brus­sels next year, 50 years af­ter Eddy Mer­ckx won his first Tour. Per­haps Ro­main Bardet can do the same.”

Ale­jan­dro Valverde to have street named af­ter him in Spain

Af­ter se­cur­ing his first elite road race world ti­tle at the ripe old age of 38, city bosses in Valverde’s birth­place of Mur­cia have de­cided to name a street af­ter him. The Avenida de Ali­cante, which joins the Avenida Miguel In­durain, will be re­named Ale­jan­dro Valverde Av­enue, re­ported Span­ish news­pa­per AS.

t UAE-TEAM Emi­rates sign Fer­nando Gaviria

Quick Step Floors have lost Fer­nando Gaviria, who goes to UAE-TEAM Emi­rates next year. The Colom­bian sprinter had three suc­cess­ful sea­sons at the Bel­gian team, win­ning six Grand Tour stages in­clud­ing two at this year’s Tour plus the yel­low jer­sey on stage one. Quick Step team manager Pa­trick Le­fe­vere had strug­gled to find re­place­ment spon­sors and had to let Gaviria go.

t Mark Cavendish re-signs with Di­men­sion Data for 2019

Mark Cavendish has re-signed with Di­men­sion Data for 2019. The new deal means Cavendish can fo­cus on sur­pass­ing Eddy Mer­ckx’s 34 Tour stage wins. “It’s the one goal that I have left in cy­cling,” Cavendish said.

“An­other four doesn’t seem that much but I know how dif­fi­cult it could be. The day that I don’t be­lieve I can chal­lenge to get that record is the day that I prob­a­bly stop rid­ing my bike.”